Our Solar System Has Got A Strange Visitor

For the first time, scientists have spotted an object from beyond our solar system near Mars’ orbit. At first, astronomers thought the rapidly moving faint light was a comet or an asteroid that had originated in our solar system. However, its orbit proved that it came from interstellar space.

This strange zooming bright thing was spotted by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Astronomers say it will pass Jupiter in May, go beyond Saturn's orbit in January 2019 and then leave our solar system, bound for the Pegasus constellation.

Lead study author Karen Meech, of the University of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy and leader of the research team, said in a statement, "What we found was a rapidly rotating object, at least the size of a football field, that changed in brightness quite dramatically,"

The long and rocky cigar-shaped object has a burnt dark-reddish hue due to millions of years of radiation from cosmic rays. It probably has a high metal content and spins on its own axis every 7.3 hours.

The object has been officially designated A/2017 UI by the International Astronomical Union, but it also has another official name: 'Oumuamua. The Hawaiian name, partly coming because of the location of the telescope that discovered it, loosely means "a messenger that reaches out from the distant past."

LOGIN

Message

Signup

Start your day with Good News!

Keep connected with the awesome developmental news and inspirational stories from India and across the globe.

Now Get Daily Good News On Whatsapp!

Enter your 10-digit mobile number below

+91

Unsubscribe: To stop the service, send 'Stop' via Whatsapp and we will stop sending you content within 24 hours.

Privacy: We respect your privacy. We store your phone number and email-id only for the purpose of sending content from My Indian Dream to you. Your phone number and any related details are NOT shared with anybody.

Disclaimer: By subscribing to this free service, you indemnify MyIndianDream.in and its owners Samvadsocial Technologies Private Limited from any damages that may occur via this service. MyIndianDream.in and its owners will not be held liable for any adverse impact that this service may lead to.

Contact: In case you have any queries, please email us at connect@myindiandream.in. Due to the large number of emails received, we may not be able to reply to every query sent, but we shall certainly look into the urgent & important ones.